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Amuse-Bouches [Links I Love]: March 6 – March 25

Here’s the latest list of stuff I found interesting on the interwebz, March 6 through March 25:

Why Can’t Johnny Write? Don’t Blame Social MediaI've heard from admissions workers at universities decrying the use of text-speak in entrance essays for years – long before Twitter, but long after many teens had mobile phones – so I understand the instinct to blame technology/social media for crappy writing.

Part of good writing is about knowing your audience, and what those students applying to college with things like LOL in their essays are displaying is a total lack of understanding of who their audience is. And that's teachable.

The fact that students are taking to the written word at all – in emails, text messages, or updates on social media – is, methinks, something to encourage and build upon. Blaming social media for crummy writing just makes you sound like an old fuddy duddy, and I'm pretty sure teenagers don't pay attention to those.

Etiquette Redefined in the Digital AgeOkay, while I can understand – to an extent – how getting an email that merely says "thanks!' might be annoying to someone who drops everything when new emails arrive, I hardly think it's "impolite." Nor do I think it's very nice of the author to not listen to voicemails left by his father.

We're in as much control of how we consume messages as we are in control of how we send them. If that "thanks!" email is a distraction, perhaps it’s because you've let email itself become a distraction. And if you're ignoring your father's voicemails in an effort to train him to text you – without telling him as much – then I kind of think you're just being an ass.

Andrea Pirlo: WinemakerHoly mother of… As if Pirlo couldn't get any more wonderful – he has a vineyard outside Brescia.

(I couldn't help but notice, once I found the vineyard’s website, that it has music on auto-play, which is annoying and fairly widely-accepted no-no. Which makes me wonder – perhaps they need a social media expert? *fingers crossed* – or maybe that should be *incrociamo le dita* instead…)

Abetone: the closest ski resort to FlorenceSo, you want to go skiing in Italy? You don't have to be in the Alps up north. Alexandra's here with all the details on the ski resort that's closest to the city of Florence – and it's only 1.5 hours away.

Italy Roundtable: The Colfiorito MarshlandsRebecca takes us along on a "faunistic pit stop" (I see what you did there) to the Colfiorito marshland in Umbria for some birdwatching and peaceful time communing with nature.